


Xenosociology

by MeloAnnechen



Category: Get Your Man
Genre: Aliens Made Them Do It, Alternate Universe - College/University, Demisexuality, Friends to Lovers, Fully Consensual Acts, High Standard Deviation, Intergalactic Masters Programs are Tough, M/M, Misuse of University Property, Need more data, Not Enough Tea, Not That Alien Abduction AU, Small Sample Size, They Always Steal Your Clothes, University of Southeastern Northwest Territories at Wholdaia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-07
Updated: 2015-07-07
Packaged: 2018-04-08 05:01:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4291665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeloAnnechen/pseuds/MeloAnnechen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No control group, inadequate sample size and exorbitant standard deviations are still problems in <i>any</i> master's thesis study.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Xenosociology

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, yes - I should be working on the soulmate story, but the xenosociology majors hijacked my content creation centers and a fully-stocked lab ship. They are a bit confused about the couple they abducted from the remote university town.

Francis woke, his head pounding. “Ergh, I didn’t go drinking last night…” Studying for his Criminal Justice 404 final was the last thing he remembered; had he fallen asleep on his friend’s couch? Wincing against the light hurting his eyes, he gingerly rolled to his side on the surprisingly comfortable surface. “This… is not Charles’s couch.” Shifting around, he noticed another problem. “Why am I naked?”

“Greetings. We have need of your assistance.”

Francis panicked as he recognized the voice. “No, no, no, no,” he muttered, ”I can’t be naked in front of the Prime Minister!” He opened his eyes to search for his clothes, heedless of the brightness making his eyes water.

“Our apologies, we chose this voice for a sense of security,” the PM continued, “Your clothes were not needed for the examination.”

He finally looked at the room, “This is definitely not where I went to sleep.” The rounded walls gave no indication of a door, or any discerning features other than the large, round, soft… pillow thing he woke up on. “I hope Charles is okay,” Francis muttered.

The calm voice of the PM assured him, “Your mate is well, if annoyed, and in the neighboring examination room.” Francis had a confusing sensation of relief combined with the thrill of shock at the designation. He had not told anyone he might care more for Charles than simple friendship would dictate. 

“May I see him?” Francis asked. 

“We will reunite you with your mate soon,” Francis found it deeply creepy that the voice of the extremely traditional Conservative politician was reassuring him that Charles was his partner. It continued, “We do have questions, if you are stable.”

“I feel I should request legal representation at this time.”

~-oOo-~

Charles shouted, “No! No questions from you until I see Francis!” A section of wall in front of him brightened, showing his friend sitting on a similar cushion, curled in on himself. Normally, he would have said that a naked Francis was a (guilty) treat for the eyes, but Charles did not like to see his friend so uncomfortable. There was no sound, but he was speaking, keeping his eyes on his hands, clasping his knees.

“He’s upset! What did you do to him?”

“We performed a scan and examination to assess his baseline condition, while he was unconscious. There should not be any discomfort.”

The pre-med student was familiar enough with his own body to realize that he himself had been gently but thoroughly examined as well. There were no residual aches or pains; if he could figure out how they had gotten a blood draw without leaving huge bruises on his arm like every other venipuncture to date had done, he’d have a hella impressive practicum. That was not the main issue at the front of his mind as he watched Francis.

“You idiots! He gets flustered and tense when someone he doesn’t know bumps him in the cafeteria queue!” Charles shouted, his frustration pushing him to search the room for the door. “Leaving him nude in an unknown place like this? You’d better have a damned good reason for it!”

“The study requires… what are you seeking?”

“A way to get to him!” He crouched to get a better look at the wall.

“We need to ask you a set of questions before we reunite you with your mate.”

“He is not my mate. He’s my best friend, but not my mate,” Charles growled.

The voice then seemed to have a mumbled conversation, as if someone had put the microphone down to talk to other people in the room, but all of the conversation was by one voice. Charles kept searching for the exit, but he started to pick up differences in speech patterns. _It’s either a kidnapper with dissociative identity disorder, or aliens with a cheap translation program. In any case, I **have** to get Francis out of here._

“Ha!” a voice in the background said, “He’s broadcasting protective pheromones and showing aggression when his companion is under what he sees as a threat, they _gotta_ to be mates!”

“But his limbic system was steady when he said they were _not_ mates,” the voice continued in response.

“An’ they weren’t sharing the pod, neither,” came another statement in the same voice.

“Okay, look,” Charles pinched the bridge of his nose. “Francis is my best friend. That is all. We do not have a sexual relationship. We do not have a romantic relationship. Near as I can tell, he doesn’t even _need_ that sort of relationship. So I am his friend.”

After a pause, the voice said quietly, “However, you want that sort of relationship.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Charles muttered. “He doesn’t, so we don’t.”

~-oOo-~

Several minutes of increasingly embarrassing questions later, Francis asked quietly, “You keep calling him my mate, why?” He kept his face angled to seem as if he were focused on the floor, but kept looking for a door.

The voice did not answer right away, but responded, “Our observations indicated you were a dedicated couple. Is that not correct?”

“I…” Francis frowned, gathering his thoughts. “Other than my family, he’s the closest person in my life.” He shrugged with an unhappy sigh, “These days, he’s closer to me than most of my family members.”

“Is that not the definition of a mate?”

“Not all of it, but yeah,” Francis said softly. “He’s the closest thing to a mate I have.”

“What is missing?”

“I’m not... right for him.”

“Can you expand on that?”

“I’ve spent my life, as long as I’ve been aware of my preferences, as asexual. All through high school and university, I had to deal with people telling me I’m just a late bloomer,” Francis said wearily. “All the usual crap - ‘Oh, you’ll change your mind later’, and ‘Plenty of time, you’re young yet, you’ll get with the dating scene when you’re older’, never mind what I said to them.”

“Ah, we know of the status, and the social views of it. Are you aromantic as well?”

“Not really. I mean, I’m actually the opposite of haphephobic, cuddling is a big thing for me,” he rubbed his face in irritation, taking a moment to look-without-looking at another section of his cell. “Thing is, so many people I thought were my friends accused me of being a tease, because I wasn’t interested in following through. So the past few years, I’ve gotten by without any of the romance.”

“How would you characterize your preferred partner for romantic gestures?”

“I like hugs from everyone, but…” he stopped scanning for a way out as the thought struck him, “things have been different in the past year.”

“What has changed?”

“I think… I might have mistaken what I am.” Francis shrugged to cover the change of the angle of his head to get a look at a new section of the ceiling.

“Would this involve your companion who is closer to you than most of your family members, as you termed him?” 

“He was understanding about my not being interested in sex, when he propositioned me the minute we met.” Francis blushed furiously. “He’s been a good friend since our freshman year, and I don’t want to lose that, if I’m wrong about everything.”

There was indistinct conversation in the background of the questioner, with snatches of “...we should tell…” and “..risking study invalidation...” occasionally being clear enough for Francis to pick up under the questions.

“You are willing to be a platonic mate to avoid the potential loss the companionship. Is that a correct statement?”

“Yes, rather have him as a good friend than not at all. If I can’t have him everywhere in my life, then hanging out on the couch will have to do.”

An aperture appeared in the wall at the edge of Francis’s vision, and as it grew, he braced himself to dive for it when it was open enough for him to slip through, only to be bowled over by Charles tackling him from it.

“Are you alright?” they asked each other, both mostly unaware that they were holding onto each other. 

“Did you…” Charles managed to ask before unconsciousness descended.

~-oOo-~

Charles woke slowly, the way he usually did. _Freakish dream last night…_ he thought as he grumbled incoherently into his pillow, wondering why the heater had gone into overdrive, making a morning shower necessary.

Then the pillow he had wrapped himself around groaned.

“Hu?!?” He blinked to find himself staring into Francis’s sleepy gaze. 

“Mmn, I was on the couch, right?” Francis blinked, looking around the room, “I guess they put us back here together.”

“That wasn’t a dream, then?” Charles eased back to get a better look at Francis’s expression, and to give him a little room. They had cuddled on the couch before, but always with clothes on.

“Yeah, um…” Francis blushed, but he had not let his arm leave Charles’s shoulders. “Did you get a lot of prying questions, whoever they were?”

“A good bit like a post-grad psychology test we didn’t exactly volunteer for, you mean?” Charles nodded.

Francis nodded, “I would have said less like clinical psychology and more like an anthropological sociology sampling.” 

Looking over his friend carefully, Charles asked, “Are you okay?”

“I guess, I mean, I wasn’t physically hurt,” Francis frowned, not quite meeting his eyes.

“Look at me Francis,” Charles said, gently tipping his friend’s chin up, “Did they do something...?”

“Not like that, just,” Francis tucked his head against Charles’s shoulder, “Their questions made me ask myself if I haven’t gotten everything wrong.”

Charles stroked Francis’s hair gently, thinking this might be heavier than the usual emotional tempests that his friend was prone to attract. “What’s got you so upset?” he asked, without his usual teasing tone. 

“I don’t want you to be angry with me,” Francis murmured into Charles’s neck, and trailed off into a whisper, “...don’t want to lose you.” 

“Why would I be mad at you?” Charles asked. 

Francis shifted in his arms, “I… might not be Ace.”

It was difficult to keep himself from pulling Francis closer, but Charles was an old hand at cuddling his friend without giving away his physical reactions to the intimacy. “You are who you are, Francis. That doesn’t change us, does it?”

“It might,” then Francis executed a quick roll, putting him on top of Charles. The action was surprising, even though Charles had watched his gangling giraffe of a buddy take out linebackers in the gym when he was sparring. It was different being on the receiving end of that wiry strength.

But then his friend’s wide open eyes, and shaky admission of, “It could,” slammed together in his head with that slight hip movement to give him an epiphany.

“You might be demi? Charles asked, and was answered with a quick nod, and because he had to make sure, he pushed, “for me?” Francis nodded again, and Charles reached up to kiss the worry off his friend’s? no, his love’s face. He wrapped his arms around Francis, pulling him closer, “That’s not necessarily a bad thing.”

Francis tucked his head into Charles’s shoulder again, “I was afraid you’d be upset, I didn’t want to lose you,” and his hips were still twitching.

“Not lost, not by a long shot,” and Charles stroked his back, rolling his hips in time with Francis’s, groaning softly as their cocks aligned.

“OH!” Francis gasped, “I, yes, it,” he babbled into Charles’s throat.

Charles lightly grasped Francis’s hips, keeping them in position, but ready to let go if Francis needed to step back. “That’s it, take what you need,” he licked the shell of Francis’s ear, murmuring all the while, “Want to give you everything you want.”

A keening whine from Francis as he frantically rutted into Charles’s hip became louder and more desperate, resolving into a shout, “CHARLES!” as he climaxed and collapsed on top of his bed-mate.

“Ngh, yeah!” Charles was not far behind him, “Oh, yes…” 

After a few moments of heavy breathing, Francis asked, “Is it usually that fast?”

Charles chuckled, stroking Francis’s back, “Not usually, but I haven’t had a date in over a year, and studying has had me too stressed out to take care of it myself.”

Francis rolled over to his side to look worried again, “You haven’t been out at all?”

“Nope,” Charles rolled over to nibble at Francis’s collarbone, “Been too content to hang out with my best friend.”

~-oOo-~

“Well, this screws our data to the pit and back.”

“True, but they kinda needed the push.”

"All well and good, but _we_ need more subjects before the campus police catch up to us!"

“Wait a minute, look at the secondary points, here.”

“That’s weird… does this mean they conform to Frelm’s Second Law of Sociodynamics?”

“Yeah, I think so - and there’s a trend in the communication archives that suggests this is a regular theme in their literature, but we need more information.”

“Still, if we change the direction of the thesis, we’re gonna need more observations.”

“Guys, the local satellite network is about to pick us up. We need to move, where should we search for the next subjects?”

“High concentration of unmated young adults, just go!”

“Scannin’ for horny young’uns under stress, gotcha.”


End file.
